


our clockwork hearts

by skyclectic



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Pre-debut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:48:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyclectic/pseuds/skyclectic
Summary: ten minutes before the end of their lunch break takes shape and solidifies into a routine: sana eats her food at the stairwell and exactly ten minutes to the hour, nayeon appears. like clockwork.---or the one where sana and nayeon are trainees chasing after their childhood dreams, and in the process, find each other.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Minatozaki Sana
Comments: 7
Kudos: 172





	our clockwork hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [likeuwuahh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeuwuahh/gifts).



> this is a speed-writing exercise of sorts. and unedited. it's really only because i just wanted to write some sanayeon to celebrate sanayeon day <3
> 
> \---  
> for zebbie, who gave me the first beginnings of this idea. thank you for inspiring  
> and also, a very happy birthday! (super early i know but ily <3)

ten minutes to the end of their lunch break, and sana is still sitting hunched on the steps of the emergency stairwell near the toilets. there’s a half eaten onigiri beside her that’s going to end up in the trash soon. sana knows she should probably finish it. but hours of dance practice that has somehow stretched into years of chasing childhood dreams have worn her edges down. and taken her appetite away too. 

it’s harder now that she’s suddenly thrown into a new group with other trainees. the group that’s set for debut sooner rather than later. her new group members are familiar faces. but sana doesn’t find home or comfort in their smiles the way she did with momo. with mina. 

they feel like strangers and there are barriers between them sana still cannot bridge. all she can do is stumble her way through korean syllables that feel foreign no matter how many times she speaks them into existence.

sana closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. she tries to imagine the white sandy beaches of her childhood - the soothing sound of the ocean and how the sun glimmered over the waves of blue. she takes in another deep breath and lets her mind snag on the memory of sitting on her father’s shoulders as he waded into the water - how his warm hands kept her safe and how his deep rumbling laughter created a symphony with hers. 

she keeps breathing and with every exhale of air, sana feels the knots around her ribcage come undone. 

/

today, sana only gets a minute of breathing along to the memory of ocean waves before she’s pulled back to reality. 

it’s cruel almost. the way nayeon forces the door to the stairwell open and tugs sana far away from her thoughts. sana’s gaze snaps to nayeon, looming over the threshold in a way that makes her feel larger than life.

she doesn’t know nayeon well enough to read the emotion that flickers across the other girl’s face. but sana offers nayeon a small smile anyway because the silence that stretches between them is teetering on the verge of awkward. and sana cannot stand awkward silences more than she cannot stand being interrupted during her one moment of solace during their break. 

nayeon takes that as the invitation that it is and flops down next to sana. 

“did you eat tteokbokki for lunch again?” sana asks, latching on to the one thing she  _ does _ know about nayeon, gleaned from snatches of conversation she overheard in the practice room.

nayeon hums distractedly, attention focused on trying to open the packet of jelly candies in her hand. sana is about to offer to do it herself when it bursts open, startling both of them. nayeon lets out a mournful cry at the sight of several peach-shaped candies tumbling down the steps one after the other. 

the giggle escapes sana’s lips before she can stop it. nayeon turns to sana, eyebrows quirked in surprise before her expression quickly dissolves into an easy grin. 

she holds out the packet in her hand and sana takes one with a mumbled thanks. nayeon hums again. this time, it’s less distracted and more in appreciation of the sweet she’s chewing on. 

"you know," nayeon says, gesturing for sana to take another piece of jelly. "i've always thought they look like tiny butts."

sana blinks, wondering if she's misheard or misunderstood but something in the cheeky curve of nayeon's smile tells her otherwise. 

"they do look like it." sana concedes after a few seconds of seriously examining the sweet in her hand. "tiny butts."

nayeon's eyes crinkle but she doesn't laugh at the way sana trips over the last word. instead, she echoes the correct pronunciation and they spend the next few minutes cycling through repetitions of the proper way to say  _ butt _ , until sana gets it perfectly. 

/

ten minutes before the end of their lunch break takes shape and solidifies into a routine: sana eats her food at the stairwell and exactly ten minutes to the hour, nayeon appears. like clockwork.

it doesn’t change anything; they don’t suddenly become the bestest of friends.

because sana has momo and mina. and nayeon has jeongyeon and jisoo. but somehow, they have each other in this brief span of time - just the two of them sharing peach jelly candies on the steps of a random stairwell. 

and just like that, ten minutes before the end of their lunch break becomes  _ theirs _ in the way strangers stake claims on familiar ground to build friendships. 

/

nayeon has always had a weaker left leg. she keeps up just fine whenever they’re practising dance routines over and over for hours. but sometimes, her leg gives out or she stumbles and doesn’t catch herself in time.

sana is now acutely aware of this, having witnessed nayeon losing her balance more than a few times. it’s why she’s now sitting at their stairwell with an opened packet of pain relief patches she bought from the nearby pharmacy.

just like clockwork, the door of the stairwell bangs open. nayeon limps in and sinks down onto the nearest step with a muffled groan. she had lost her balance during their practice late last night and landed on her right foot the wrong way. nayeon had insisted on continuing, stubbornly refusing to rest. it’s something she shares in common with sana - both of them are relentless as they chase down their dreams to turn them real. 

still, sana had caught the flicker of pain that clouded nayeon’s eyes. sighing, sana moves until she’s sitting cross-legged in front of nayeon. 

“take off your shoes.”

“what?” nayeon’s voice is heavy with confusion and she’s looking at sana like she’s trying to piece together a puzzle.

instead of repeating herself, sana takes nayeon’s right foot and puts it on her lap. carefully, she unties all the laces and slips the shoe off before pulling down nayeon’s sock and exposing her tender ankle. 

“if it hurts, you shouldn’t be dancing.” sana tears the adhesive off one of the pain patches and with gentle fingers, places it on nayeon’s skin. nayeon hisses slightly when sana applies pressure to secure the patch, but doesn’t move her foot. 

when sana looks up to offer nayeon a reassuring smile, there’s an unreadable expression on nayeon’s face - a constellation of emotions that sana cannot identify. 

nayeon’s expression lingers in sana’s mind. long after their ten minutes is up and they had back to the practice room, sana’s arm an anchor around nayeon’s waist as nayeon leans against her for support.

/

sana is surprised when she opens the door of the emergency stairwell to find nayeon already there.

nayeon is grinning - one of those radiant bunny-toothed smiles that make her eyes crinkle. there’s a paper plate stacked with a pyramid of choco pies and a lone candle at the top. 

“call her!” nayeon says, brimming with excitement.

sana blinks. she knows who nayeon means but sana cannot seem to wrap her head around the fact that nayeon remembers it’s her  _ obaasan’s _ birthday today, let alone prepare some sort of cake for sana to wish her grandmother with. 

_ i can’t believe you _ , sana wants to say.  _ i can’t believe you went through all this trouble. you don’t even know my obaasan in person.  _

but she can’t find the right words in korean. and nayeon is smiling at her with warmth that rivals a million rising suns. like she is offering sana all the sunshine she needs to light every one of her grey days to come. 

there’s a lump in sana’s throat now. and a tangle of feelings in her chest that feels too large. too significant. too much. but she takes the plate of choco pies that nayeon holds out anyway. and somehow keeps her voice steady as she tells nayeon what number to dial on her phone. 

nayeon stays out of frame, holding the phone for sana whose hands are full. when sana sings happy birthday, nayeon joins in, singing softly under her breath. she mixes korean words with what little japanese she knows and it makes sana giggle her way through the last half of the song.

“make a wish for me,” obaasan tells her through the screen - an ocean away from sana but always close to her heart. 

sana obliges and slips her eyes closed. she inhales deeply and wishes for the health of her beloved grandmother.

and then in the next breath, sana wishes for more moments like this. for more pockets of ten minutes with nayeon every day. 

sana knows she’s cheating, knows that she’s not supposed to make a second wish, but her heart won’t have it any other way. 

/

“i think you should go, sana,” nayeon tells her, smoothing her thumb over the back of sana’s hand in reassurance.

“but what about - “

“we only get one chance to chase our dreams,” nayeon interrupts, squeezing sana’s hand hard enough to hurt. “and our debut has been delayed so many times now. we may not get to be on stage after all. so go, take the offer.”

sana swallows thickly, feeling hot tears gathering in her lungs. nayeon looks at her patiently. encouragingly. with the softest smile on her face that betrays the way her heart is cracked open with tenderness. and chipped raw from yet another failed debut, this one on the heels of a survival show too cruel for their spirits to remain intact afterwards.

“but what about you?” sana chokes out, words barely above a whisper. 

nayeon’s smile twists, fraying at the seams from a sadness she tries to hide. “don’t worry about me. chase your own dreams, sana-yah.”

sana cannot find her words. in either korean or her native japanese. and in the absence of words, her tears spill over onto her cheeks. 

they cry together that day - the last day. the last ten minutes they ever spend in the emergency stairwell that has somehow become  _ theirs _ .

/

years later, when she’s exhausted after hours of endless schedules, sana’s mind latches onto that stairwell. nayeon’s smile swims to the front of her mind. and refuses to leave, chasing after her as she drifts off to sleep and slips into dreams that are shaped from memories.

it takes sana even longer to piece it all together. that when she left to chase her dreams with another company, she had left her own heart behind. with nayeon in the emergency stairwell near the toilets on the third floor of the jyp building. 

it’s too late by the time she finds the words she couldn’t find that last day.  _ my dreams include you too. i don’t want to dream if you’re not with me.  _

/

there’s ten minutes left until the start of her movie premiere. sana is due to walk down the red carpet soon. but she just needs a moment. just a moment to breathe and steel herself for the sea of camera flashes and questions that will greet her the moment she steps out again.

so she hides in this random stairwell, sitting on the steps in her too-expensive midnight blue dress and her heels in a heap at the bottom of the steps. it catches her completely by surprise when the door to the stairwell bangs open. 

her gaze snaps up to meet familiar brown eyes and the world stops spinning. sana is frozen, staring in disbelief at the face that has haunted her dreams for years, now in the flesh before her. 

im nayeon looms over the threshold in a way that makes her feel larger than life. like she’s reclaiming every acre of space in sana’s heart. it’s impossible, and inexplicable in so many ways. but maybe, fate will always work in ways sana can never predict or understand.

slowly, like the gentle caress of sunlight softening the deepest night, nayeon smiles. 

“your director is a good friend of mine,” nayeon says as she settles beside sana, tucking in the hem of her lace-embroidered dress beneath her legs. “she invited me to the premiere. i wasn’t expecting to bump into you, though.”

the years have only made nayeon more beautiful - smoothing over the roughness of teenage adolescence with an elegance that nayeon carries well.

still, the way her smile widens into a bunny-toothed grin is as familiar to sana as breathing. while she’s still trying to find her words, nayeon pulls out something from her purse. 

“you know,” nayeon says, gesturing for sana to take a piece of peach jelly candy. “i’ve always thought they look like tiny butts.”

there’s an edge of mischief dancing in nayeon’s eyes, a laugh tugging at the corners of her mouth. sana feels laughter bubbling up her chest too.

“they do - “ she manages to say before bursting into giggles that sets nayeon off. 

their laughter weaves into a harmony that lingers in the stairwell long after their ten minutes is up: a testament to second chances and new beginnings. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> @skyclectic on twitter and skyclectic on curious cat.
> 
> so, come drop by to say hi or share your thoughts or ask me anything, really. <3


End file.
